I’ve advised people to get and stay out of debt for a long time, but even so, I didn’t fully understand the affects of debt until the Covid time hit us. As the mayhem spread, I struggled to understand the level of compliance with what would have been, at any other time, criminal medical advice: To take an untested vaccine, and one that didn’t even fit the definition of a vaccine. (Until the definition was rewritten, of course.)
Certainly compliance was driven by massive applications of fear. And, certainly, it was accompanied by exceptional levels of guilt, as in “You’ll be responsible for killing Grandma!” Still, there was more to it, and that extra piece, I soon enough realized, was debt.
If I Had An Economist…
If I had an economist on my payroll, I’d assign them to a very simple task: Go find the relevant data, and correlate levels of debt and levels of compliance. I’d bet large that the correlation would be statistically significant.
Consider the typical police officer: He or she is on the job for benefits and steady paychecks: large American cities aren’t going to stop writing paychecks any time soon, nor will the various police unions let go of the benefit packages that justify them. This exemplary cop, like nearly all police officers, is deeply in debt. They have a mortgage and quite possible a home-equity loan or line of credit. They also have a car loan or two, and credit cards beyond that. There may also be student loans.
So, this typical law enforcer cannot leave their job without facing financial ruin… financial ruin plus a complete loss of place and standing. Such a loss, to them, would be almost an existential crisis. And so, when orders come down from the high-and-mighties, demanding that they comply with a medical regime, the choice they face is between compliance and complete ruin.
And consider the average doctor: Although they make more money than the police officer, they also have a larger home loan, larger car loans, and very definitely larger student loans.
More than that, the independence of physicians was destroyed by Obamacare. And so, the doctors of America were in no better shape than the police officers of America: they could either comply or be ruined. (The situation in other places isn’t generally much better.)
The same, of course, goes for nurses, teachers, and a hundred other types. Nearly everyone in the West, over the past couple of decades, has been stampeded into massive levels of debt. It’s been the only way to keep up a certain level of prosperity and lifestyle. And, of course, it has worked: If you’ve found respectable employment with anything big – corporations, institutions or government – you’ve been able to roll over your debt indefinitely.
And so, when everyone associated with large employers was ordered (seemingly in concert) to take a highly questionable “vaccine,” the majority agonized for a while, and then they complied.
After Compliance
None of this is to say that the people who complied are stupid, weak, or anything of the sort: They were merely under enormous pressure, during a deeply confused moment, submerged in fear. In that situation, they had no choice but to weigh the risks as best they could, then make the choice that seemed to offer the least pain. And so they did.
Now it’s clear that the fear was overplayed, that the “vaccines” didn’t stop anyone from getting the disease, and that there have been both health and financial repercussions. But it wasn’t so clear at the time.
During the mayhem, the people who complied under pressure generally fought those who didn’t, at least if they were vocal about it. After all, they were directly challenging their dignity. Now, however, time has passed and only die-hards (those who profited from the Covid time) are still hammering away with guilt and fear, and the police officers, et al, are sorting things out. By ones and twos they are becoming ready to say that things went too far.
What I hope is that these people will recognize the role that debt played in their choices. Debt was a sword hanging over their heads, and it distorted their decision process.
Out And Away
If we want practical freedom, we need to be free from the influence of debt. The people controlling all that debt have far more power over us than we thought.
As it turns out, the old admonitions to avoid debt weren’t wrong. Debt can undermine our choices and subvert our character. It’s to be used sparingly and carefully at best.
**
Paul Rosenberg
freemansperspective.com
* * * * *
Please take a look at our subscription letters. You can find the back issues here and you can order here. Professionals in the business have begged us to raise our rates, but we have subscribers on limited incomes, and so we haven’t. Given the present inflation we may have to, but for now annual subscriptions remain at just $99.